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A man who murdered his lover and their child to hide the affair from his partner will spend the rest of his life in prison, a German court ruled on Monday.

The judge in Munich was convinced that the man, identified only as Gunnar D., from Celle, Lower Saxony, drowned his 30-year-old lover from Stuttgart in the sea and killed their daughter after she demanded financial support for the child.

He had broken off his relationship with Georgina Z. when she told Gunnar she was pregnant with his child back in 2008 and after his long-term partner moved in with him.

But she sued him for maintenance for their daughter – and the court said it was at this point that he started planning to kill them both.

“The accused saw the relationship with his partner under threat,” judge Michael Höhne said. “In order to get rid of this threat, he had to get his lover out of the way.”

He persuaded Georgina Z. to go to Portugal on holiday with him, and then, according to a previous report in Der Spiegel, pretended to horse around with her in the shallow water, while actually holding her under.

It was not clear how he killed their 21-month-old daughter, whose body was found by fishermen some time later, but the court found him guilty of that too.

Gunnar D.'s tearful appeal at the end of the trial on Monday, saying, “I would never be capable of doing such a thing to a person who I loved with my heart,” failed to convince judge Höhne.

He convicted Gunnar D. of two counts of murder and said, “Even with the most optimistic prognosis, it would not be acceptable to release the accused after 15 years.”

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